If Sony are to start shifting PS3s in the kind of number that they truly desire, it's getting titles like SingStar talked about. Come on, who’s mum hasn’t been mildly intrigued when she’s heard you crooning along to some classic track during the break in Coronation Street?

So Sony’s big plan to bag the casual gamer is to bring PS2s SingStar right bang up to date. But considering it was a game focusing on your musical talents, and with the visuals descending into merely a selection of music videos and some words on screen, there’s a lot more though needed than simply give the whole thing a new paintjob.

For the uninitiated, SingStar is essentially a console version of good old karaoke. Only instead of some drunken bugger that’s just been dumped wailing into the microphone all evening as usually happens at karaoke bars, here you can choose exactly who gets a turn.

With the game itself you get a varied selection of tunes to sing along to. This initial batch seems to have come direct from the brain of someone desperate to cover every kind of pop based avenue known to man. There’s even a bit of Radiohead if you adore good music, rather than mindless popular pap.

But the major plus for this next-gen version is the addition of the delightfully named SingStore. Get your PS3 online and you can purchase tracks for a mere 99p each to add to your collection, so expect the total number of tracks available to you to grow fairly rapidly, especially once the wine starts to flow.

As it stands, there’s a mere 44 extra tracks available for download, but many more are promised, with additions to be made every single week from the middle of December. Exactly what tracks and artists we can expect over the years remains to be seen, but the potential is obviously there to cover absolutely every avenue of music. Always perfect as family music tastes do tend to differ as your drift between generations.

The other big addition is the ability to use the PlayStation Eye to take photos of your drunken chums crooning along to some random tune. You can even film yourselves in your drunken stupor and upload it to Sony’s servers for all the world to laugh at. Thankfully Sony seem to be well aware that some cheeky folks will no doubt try and upload a video of their bottom to go along with Razorlight, and things seems to be family friendly thus far. Although substitute an arse for Jonny Borrel and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference...

Verdict

Other than all that, it’s the same old SingStar we know and love. It’s always going to be a major seller, and with the new online capabilities, it makes it an absolute essential for the usually quite dull family holidays.